swirl

High school students: closet anarchists, or nanny-staters? Or both?

Although a large majority of students surveyed say musicians and others should be allowed to express "unpopular opinions," 74% say people shouldn't be able to burn or deface an American flag as a political statement; 75% mistakenly believe it is illegal.

Not surprisingly, only 39% of teachers (and 25% of principals) believe that "students should be allowed to report controversial issues in their student newspapers without the approval of school authorities."

Time to readjust lesson plans.

[thanks to Hit and Run]

yee-ha

Ed Brayton's favorite pseudohistorian is rather dashing in a cowboy hat.

up for the Challenge

Item: Mark Olson's first posting on Awakenings is over at Pseudo-Polymath.

Update: so is the second.

Update Update: and let's not forget the third (and final) entry.

an eye for the bizarre

Anyone interested in epistemology (especially as it relates to Frank Jackson's "Knowledge Argument") must read this recent article from NewScientist. The premise:

The painter is Esref Armagan. And he is here in Boston to see if a peek inside his brain can explain how a man who has never seen can paint pictures that the sighted easily recognise - and even admire. He paints houses and mountains and lakes and faces and butterflies, but he's never seen any of these things. He depicts colour, shadow and perspective, but it is not clear how he could have witnessed these things either. How does he do it?

Read and be amazed.

link of the day

Jubilate, O ye friends of democracy.

hasta pronto

I'm off to Eastside Catholic HS in Bellevue for a weekend of debate. Normal posting resumes shortly.

flop ten

Zing!

big wheel keep on turnin'

While the Washington state gubernatorial debacle continues to eat up the op-ed page, we here in the Evergreen State have one person to be thankful for: Secretary of State Sam Reed. Reed's refusal to consistently side with the Republicans during this contest has bolstered his credibility, even as it has simultaneously infuriated and elated both friends and foes. His latest hijinks: calling for the controversy to be settled in the courts (against the Dems, who want to solve the problem in the legislature, which--surprise!--they control).

Most surprising to this blogger, though, is the relative silence on Hugh Hewitt's blog. That the author of If It's Not Close They Can't Cheat has barely even mentioned the ongoing kerfluffle is baffling. Hugh?

web learnin'

To aficionados of A.I. (the concept, not the plodding Spielberg couldabeenamasterpiece), this is heartening:

Computers can learn the meaning of words simply by plugging into Google. The finding could bring forward the day that true artificial intelligence is developed.

Trying to get a computer to work out what words mean - distinguish between "rider" and "horse" say, and work out how they relate to each other - is a long-standing problem in artificial intelligence research.

One of the difficulties has been working out how to represent knowledge in ways that allow computers to use it. But suddenly that is not a problem any more, thanks to the massive body of text that is available, ready indexed, on search engines like Google (which has more than 8 billion pages indexed).

The meaning of a word can usually be gleaned from the words used around it. Take the word "rider". Its meaning can be deduced from the fact that it is often found close to words like "horse" and "saddle". Rival attempts to deduce meaning by relating hundreds of thousands of words to each other require the creation of vast, elaborate databases that are taking an enormous amount of work to construct.

When computers can get the difference between sarcasm and telling it straight, we're in real trouble.

suicidal man faces possible death penalty

No, really.

ballywho?

Shafer gets it.

The Challenge of Jesus: Part I

[As explained previously, this represents the first installment in a series of brief articles on N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus.]



Part I: Disappointment

Recently, I have been exploring on the relationship between the synoptic problem and Christian eschatology. After Part II, I decided to take a break, let my thoughts jell, and stop pontificating and start researching. I was surprised by the lack of immediately available information, as far as I could tell, on this specialized topic. So, when Mark Olson challenged non-believers to read Wright's book, I gladly accepted.

Mark's invitation included this statement: "On a personal selfish note, I really do want to hear what a 'differently' biased person might say when reading this." Here's where I qualify. As a former believer, a one-time adherent to the Christian faith, I have a strong affinity for all things Christian; my understanding of Christianity is both from an insider's an an outsider's perspective. So, unlike some "strong atheists" or persons of different faiths, I have no automatic, knee-jerk responses to Christian arguments; to some degree, I can see where Christians are coming from, because I've been there.

That being said, Wright's book is readable, interesting, and surprisingly poignant in parts (which I'll discuss later), and condenses a wealth of information into bite-size chunks. Written for laypersons, and not extensively footnoted, it is perhaps a jumping-off point for scholars. My disappointment relates to its target demographic: Christian believers. The book is a call for recommitment to the quest for the historical Jesus, reconciliation between opposing historical-critical camps, renewal of dialogue among Christians about the true meaning of the Gospels. As an insider-outsider, I can easily navigate through the faith-talk looking for intellectual insight, but I would imagine such language off-putting for a "true" nonbeliever.

Coming soon: Getting the Gist

swing away

Ed Brayton has made bashing WorldNetDaily into a hobby (though he doesn't have time to make it a career). His latest fodder: an article about Wiccans who dare to worship on military bases, and the Christian fundamentalists clamoring to inhibit their rights.

Brayton writes:

Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the whole thing is that these are the first people to wrap themselves in the flag and pat themselves on the back for their patriotism. Yet they urge their followers to refuse to join the military solely because other religions get to join up and practice their faith too? Not only are they willing to shred the first amendment to deny others the same rights they demand for themselves, they're willing to weaken our national defense if the military doesn't give in to their demands for religious purity. I can scarcely imagine anything less patriotic than that.

I give Mr. Brayton one week to discover something less patriotic--and likely in the stream of drivel we all know as WorldNutDaily.

full speed ahead

I thought to myself, If Jason Kuznicki can do it, so can I.

Trackbacks are now available on this blog. Knock yourselves out.

you may now resume thinking

Thanks largely to a furious letter-writing campaign, Brian Weatherson's Online Papers in Philosophy is back... with a vengeance!

jurisprudential aesthetics

Lo and behold, no such phrase exists on Google--which might partially explain why I found Jonathan Turley's recent article, Art and the Constitution, so novel and intriguing. His thesis:

In many ways, the endeavors of law and art seem to have converged in the interpretation of the Constitution as the Court has moved from more classic to more impressionistic interpretations of constitutional provisions, particularly in the area of national security law.

Worth a look-see.

when education doesn't suck

Another batch of sophomores, another trip through The Bald Soprano, with delightfully frustrating results. "It doesn't make any sense!" is the common complaint, and eye-rolling greets my inevitable response: "No, it doesn't, and yes it does." The class structure, inductive reasoning, and logic all fall prey to Ionescu's savage wit. Best moment of instruction always involves the Moebius strip, which is patently magical in its defiance of categorization (does it have one side, or two?). Teaching can be fun, and even fascinating, if only for minutes in a high-school day.

this epigram belongs to me

Nerds of a feather blog together.

lemme calculate that coefficient forya

The quiz is definitely biased toward (against?) one sort of nerd; you'll see what I mean when you take it.*


[Thanks to the Teacher/Ref/Poet]

Update: My wife scored 40; we're perfectly matched.

Update Update: Mark Olson scored 96. Ay caramba!



*Do notice that I said "when."

confounding expectations

Le Trou
You wouldn't guess that uninterrupted shots of pounding through concrete could be this nerve-wracking, but they are. Did I mention that this narrative of men against masonry is a bold humanist fable?

Sling Blade
Billy Bob Thornton: amazing, to the twitch. Dwight Yoakam: brilliant, and more "assholish" than any film character I've witnessed. Did I mention that this redemption story is as searing as any of Flannery O'Connor's?